Antioch, Ill., Breaks Ground on New Wastewater Treatment Plant

The village of Antioch, Ill., officially broke ground on its new wastewater treatment plant on April 19, the Lake County News-Sun reported. The $16 million facility is scheduled to open by spring 2010. “I’m thrilled that this is finally coming to fruition,” said Mayor Dorothy Larson. “It’s been a long, long process.”

The plant will be located on the site of the village’s current 80-year-old facility. Although construction began two weeks ago, local officials and developers gathered on April 19 to officially mark the occasion.

The completed facility will be able to handle approximately 9 million gallons of water a day, though it would rarely handle more than 3 million, according to Jim Keim, the village’s director of physical services. It will be able to serve roughly 16,000 residents, 25% more than the current facility, the paper reported.

The majority of the funding for the project, 95%, will come from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.

There will be no runoff ponds on the site, as there were at the old plant. Water will be treated and stored on site, where it will go through a 12-hour process to be treated, filtered and released into Sequoit Creek, according to the paper.

“We want to make sure our waterways continue to be the best in the state,” Keim said.